Friends, good news! You're not idiots! The bad news, though, is that a whole bunch of people are, and increasingly idiocy is not a barrier to high achievement in our education system, because intelligence, per se, isn't a point of particular emphasis for education bureaucrats. Incredible, you say? No, not really. Marxism teaches us that the privileged and powerful (and smart) are actually the scum of the earth, whereas the erstwhile scum, i.e. society's outcasts, are actually the cream of the crop. And so, thanks to our leftist friends, the first are last, and the last are first, and all's well with the world!
On this week's Newsmaker Show, Brian and I discuss the long-term decline in the intelligence levels of American college students, the despicable new threat to our gun rights, the quixotic quest of Nikki Haley to be the GOP presidential candidate, the hard-left efforts to remove everyone from the ballot this November except Joe Biden, and the scale of the migrant invasion under Biden and Mayorkas.
When we get to This Day in History, we dissect JFK's masterful handling of the press (granted, the press was eager to be romanced), as well as the fate of Chairman Mao's wife after his death.
From Buffalo to Beijing, WaddyIsRight has you covered! Tune in today.
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-january-25-2025-dr-nick-waddy/
***
In other news, note the scathing contempt that this BBC article expresses towards the practice of capital punishment in the United States -- and the utter lack of context, i.e. the failure to mention the fact that the (supposedly progressive) Biden DOJ just sought to apply the death penalty against a white supremacist mass murderer. When Alabama kills a killer, the BBC and the international media get the vapors. When Biden and Garland try to do the same thing, we get...crickets.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68085513
Finally, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas is doing his best to defend Texas' border with Mexico against a migrant invasion, and the U.S. federal government is doing its best to undermine Texas and keep the border wide open. No surprise there. I know many conservatives like the cut of Abbott's jib, but the truth is that he's on very shaky ground. The federal government controls immigration policy, and Texas will not succeed in changing the fundamental dynamics at the border. It's a noble effort, but only a GOP victory in November would advance the ball. That's just the way it is.
RAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteFor starters, an effective barrier between the U.S. and Mexico could have been built long ago, and never was until Trump came along and built some wall, which was not as effective as people think it is.
With that said, how come such a strong barrier was never constructed? Budget constraints? Realistically speaking, isn't it reasonable to assume that more than a few people on both side of the U.S. Mexico border are getting paid giant bucks to ensure that there never is an effective barrier?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I have a different view on the border situation. Article 1, sec. 10 , clause 3, which Gov. Abbott has invoked but apparently not yet legally prosecuted , reads "No state . . . shall engage in war unless actually invaded " and also sanctions war if it is immediately necessary . On both grounds I think Gov. Abbott is on solid defacto ground and that both his responsibilities and his intimate knowledge of this crisis must garner for him much deference. Does he think it necessary only to cite this law in order to justify proceeding with both the enactment and the countenance of physical measures to stop illegal immigration ( which surely is an invasion)? According to Drudge this is a quickly evolving situation. I think it bodes the possibility of volatile onsite confrontation. Some very profound issues are rising from this. Is the the Biden administration's plainly demonstrated support for and encouragement of freely exercised immigration at the southern border ,obviously in contradiction of US law, definable by the term treason? Certainly most of the illegal immigrants are desperately trying to obtain decent living conditions unavailable to them otherwise. But some of them are either motivated by further criminal intent or by political resolve to harm our country. The unlawful presence of all of them in our country is inimical to our country's very integrity; does it therefore fulfill the requirement for aid and comfort to the enemy posited by the treason statute? An invasion , requiring physical contradiction, can plausibly be termed war. Other states are sending assistance and declaring support for Texas. A reckoning of some sort may be in the offing, well before the possible inauguration of a law abiding President I think.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the U.S.-Mexico Border and its unsecurity, you might be interested in reading a book written by Jerome Corsi titled "The Late Great U.S.A: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada" (2007). There is also a C-SPAN video with Corsi talking about his book on C-SPAN.org (The Late Great U.S.A.) (2007).
This book, in my opinion, is more important now than ever. Of Course The Leftist butt chunks dismiss Corsi as a nut case conspiracy theorist. That must mean that what he says has a great deal of truth in it, if The Leftists take time to smear him.
Check it out.
Ray, yes! A real wall has never been built because in the final analysis neither Mexico nor the U.S. (elite) wants one.
ReplyDeleteJack, that's all very well, but no court has found the tide of migrants to be an "invasion", and there is no majority in terms of public opinion for the idea that we are at war or face an existential threat at the southern border. Americans don't like the border crisis, but they aren't overwhelmingly angry or frantic about it. Just look at our last several election cycles. The GOP has tried to push Americans' buttons re: illegal immigration and gotten essentially nowhere. No, I believe that, if we provoke a constitutional crisis because of the flood of migrants, neither the courts nor the public will side with us, ultimately -- and nor do I believe that any state, including Texas, has the guts to defy the federal government anyway.
Ray, I believe there was talk of a North American Union, a la the European Union. I can see why it never happened. Canada and Mexico probably fear being swamped, politically and economically. The irony is that we're the ones being swamped, demographically.
It's interesting that the three stories here today mention nothing about Trump's $83.3 million judgment against him in the Carroll case. The next shoe to drop soon will be a $250+ million judgment related to his fraud trial. Gee, $330 million here and $330 million there adds up to a LOT of money. If you add up all his physical assets, Trump is worth somewhere between $3 and $4 billion. He claims he is worth $10 billion because his brand equity is $6 billion. The real worth of his brand value is in the toilet. Where this becomes an issue is if he has to put up bond during an appeal. That would be equivalent of the specific judgment. In the fraud case, that would be the $250+ million, meaning Trump would have to liquidate property. Being forced into that position may mean he loses negotiating leverage, and sells for less than full value. So far, Trump is having a tough time in his legal battles. Perhaps he can argue ineffective assistance of counsel. Few lawyers are as incompetent as Alina Habba.
ReplyDeleteI agree the Biden administration is wrong in pursuing the death penalty in the Buffalo shooting. Murder is murder. Is killing someone because of their race any worse than killing someone for money?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I am an anglophile but the Brits have gone very much wrong in some of their attitudes toward crime and criminals. The blatant example is the farmer who, after being accosted several times in his isolated home , defended himself with force and was sent to prison for it. Then the state financed the criminals' lawsuit against the farmer for harm to their precious persons. Utterly counterintuitive, touchy feely , terribly powerful nonsense this is! Hurray for that Alabama judge for upping the ante! And if fear of the method obtains, then justice is enhanced. Yes, Biden's motive in approving the very deserved prospect of death for the Tops monster is nonetheless political but at least that presumptuous subhuman will assuredly pay the price for his casual sociopathy, as should many others who have been spared due to terribly misplaced empathy. Let those who harbor sympathy for ruthless victimizers of the law abiding stew when justice is done to proven savages. And let those societies which do their duty to the lawful and especially children and seniors(in which our country stands most shamefully remiss) stand exemplary to those terribly compromised by smug, pusillanimous regard for the criminal.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the death penalty is that the criminal justice system is fallible. According to the Innocence Database, since 1973, 195 inmates who spent time on death row have been ultimately released - often because of prosecutorial misconduct. That's 195 individuals who could have wrongly been put to death. We don't know how many innocent people have been executed.
ReplyDeleteUntil we have a less fallible system of justice, the death penalty should be off the table. You really want to punish someone -- sentence them to solitary confinement!
Rod from Jack: Your question above is well taken; I'd suggest that the Buffalo savage has committed a crime so heinous that all other factors are eclipsed by it. Anyone proven guilty of such a crime should be dispatched, regardless of any factor beyond commission of the crime.All willful murder should be classified as sufficiently offensive. Our legal system has institutionalized the consideration of mitigating and aggravating circumstances but they must be argued on their individual and incidental merits rather than being broadly mandated, as is the case in "hate crime" conviction. Any crime as heinous as murder can reasonably be assumed to have been motivated by very intense antipathy or perversion, I think.
ReplyDeleteRod from Jack: You have well justified your rejection of the death penalty; in order to prevent unjust executions, abolish the death penalty. But: life in prison in our country is almost never guaranteed. In '88 we had a Governor and Presidential nominee whose policy afforded a "furlough" to a monster who was doing "life" for having stabbed a young gas station attendant so many times that his blood was completely drained. Ok, Dukakis deservedly lost the election in part because of such insanely counterintuitive administration but the monster predictably committed another very savage crime during his vacation. And then Dukakis refused to give personal audience to the victims. Andrew Cuomo wanted to release those of "the guys" doing life who had done 15 years and were over 50.Persons very unwise and unempathetic to crime victims will always be around and dedicated to making life easier for sociopathic victimizers.We must not empower them; we are all potential victims, especially when our right to self defense is so very much curtailed that we risk incarceration by exercising it. Life in solitary would never pass Constitutional scrutiny. I worked with prisoners in solitary, sometimes in their cells. Its a madhouse. In war we necessarily kill enemy soldiers, most of whom are guiltless of crime, lest they kill us. It is appalling but it has to be done sometimes. Savage criminals commit warlike acts against our civilization and, in our justified self defense, the terrible error of unjust execution must be risked. People are unjustly executed by criminals emboldened by a too tolerant legal system everyday.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I've always thought that the only effective counter to massive Federal gov't overreach would come when a state Governor says NO! to the Feds, goes to the wall about it and is backed by many other states. This may be at hand now .
ReplyDeleteRod from a Maga (Jack). The more Trump is harried by that faction of our legal system which is unapologetically politically compromised; then all the more we back him. We couldn't care less about the charges; they are all completely discredited by this injustice.
ReplyDeleteRod from Jack: Military commanders, some of whom are among the most revered figures in our history, of necessity run the excruciating risk of unsuccessful battle resulting in the tragic deaths of their soldiers . Given the apparent persistence of military aggression, it must be done. We must face similar reality and make the hard choice between risking unintended injustice and surrendering wide latitude to the lawless, especially the hellish barbarians who enjoy such obvious precedence over the law abiding in our country today. No, I would not want to given the death penalty for something I didn't do but neither did I want to be killed during my military service or my career in state prisons.
ReplyDeleteThanks for backing me up on the death penalty issue, Rod.
ReplyDeleteYes, Trump's potential legal liabilities are potentially financially burdensome, but let's face it: that's the least of his worries. He can afford to pay, and his supporters would, in the final analysis, pay for him, if called upon to do so. Trump's bigger problem is that almost all Democrats, many skilled prosecutors, and whole lot of potential jurors want him in jail, presumably for the rest of his life. If that doesn't pan out, most lefties would like to see him exiled or dead. Trump has only begun to feel the pain that the Left/the establishment can inflict upon him, and he will need to play his cards very carefully to escape utter doom.
Rod is right that the justice system is fallible. Of course, that's an argument for never putting anyone in prison at all (and nullifying Trump's liability in the Carroll case to boot). That's unrealistic, though. Society needs to defend itself against monsters, and it must do so even if, occasionally, innocent people are convicted of crimes they didn't commit. The best we can do is try to make the system better and fairer to all.
Rod is also right that death will not be, in many cases, the worst thing that society can do to a killer. Life in prison, especially in a maximum security prison, could be a lot worse. I suppose, yes, solitary confinement would be even worse for some, and better for others. I personally don't think the point of the death penalty is to deter crime (because it may not) or to make the guilty suffer (which would be barbaric) but to enforce justice and to end a life that the guilty have essentially CHOSEN to forfeit. Killing them will often be, in truth, an act of mercy, but the mercy is incidental.
Jack, to your list of reasons why the death penalty is an unfortunate necessity I would add this observation: leftists oppose the death penalty mainly because they cannot conceive of life after death, or anything more significant to a man (or a woman) than the opportunity to cling to this mortal coil. If one believes in the afterlife, however, then the death penalty is not as final a judgement as a typical leftist secular humanist might suggest.
Jack, I'm sure Rod would concede that Trump's legal troubles have boosted his appeal to his base. He would still hope against hope that the electorate as a whole would reach a different conclusion, and it may or it may not, when all is said and done.
Nicholas, I can't speak for other people, but I do believe in an afterlife. I am against the death penalty because if the system makes a mistake and executes an innocent person, there's no going back. Doing time, and then the system finds out you are innocent, sucks, but at least you have an opportunity to live your life again (and, depending on the state, with some monetary compensation). Again, it's not a great outcome, but it is better than being killed wrongly.
ReplyDeleteJack, unless and until solitary confinement is seen by the courts as cruel and unusual punishment, it is constitutional.
One of the problems in the parole system is that violent offenders often get released when they serve a certain amount of time. Parole boards are also supposed to consider the likelihood of an inmate re-offending. In the aftermath of Willie Horton, the Dukakis administration was rightly chastised for not emphasizing Horton's likelihood of engaging in another violent crime. He should not have been in that furlough program.
Drs. Waddy and Carveth: I think it is just that willful monsters should suffer mental and emotional distress at the thought of execution and death. One of the most inhumanly insouciant of killers, Ted Bundy, reportedly displayed abject dread of what might await him, just before his dispatch. Just so.Parole certainly is misapplied frequently. Inmates often"play the parole game" with no intention of leading lawful lives. Giving parole, which necessitates trust, is counterintuitive when given to criminally untrustworthy people. This reality fosters cynicism about it among both criminals and law enforcement. I sent an overdue book notice to an inmate,who was convicted of attempted murder, who had two days to go before parole. He threatened to cut my throat. I reported it to Parole but he was released anyway. Solitary is a necessity for maintenance of some order in prisons. Characteristically, criminal empowering NY has placed severe time limits on it. I saw a very aggressive guy who when released from solitary, visibly wanted to continue being a threat. But he restrained himself because he was afraid of the box in midsummer. But life in solitary, though enforced rarely, is an appalling prospect, especially after a few years of it.I don't know if it has been Constitutionally challenged. I'll look it up .
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: On the far left: couldn't agree more : they are reflexively , automatically, often mindlessly, counterintuitive and iconoclastic ( even though so many of today's icons are of their presumptuous creation). I encountered it so many times in the leftist dominated library profession. Perversely, it probably accounts for much of their so easily provoked and contemptuously expressed scorn and inability to endure principled dialogue on controversial issues. Also, I followed Chinese events after Mao's death. I think the real China said " if you think we are going to put up with any more of his terribly powerful nonsense now that he is gone, think again!" They made short work of the "Gang of Four", which included Madame Mao. That faction promised sincere allegiance to Maoism but instead, eventually pragmatic Teng Hsiao Ping rose and helped China become China again. So many uncountable millions benefitted from that.
ReplyDeleteDrs Waddy and Carveth: I too, as I sense you do, fear God's wrath. His assertion "vengeance is mine" must be given profound deference, I think. But I would GUESS only, that it is not meant to prevent faithful people from protecting the lawful from criminals who, if not taken firmly in hand by civilization, will assuredly practice willful and unrestrained capital evil. And being mostly cowards, they will commit it against the most vulnerable.
ReplyDeleteRod, yes -- the death penalty is a hard thing to reconsider. Once we can downloaded a person's consciousness, that constraint will be removed. In fact, we could even consign a person's "soul" to a version of hell specially designed to torment them. I wonder what kind of hell the Biden DOJ would prepare for Trump?
ReplyDeleteWhile I can certainly understand the human penchant for vengeance, and for enjoying the administration of pain and anxiety to those who have wronged us, I find it hard to see any of that as an appropriate function of a civilized justice system. To me, the rightful order of things is that a kind of social contract applies to each and every one of us: to coexist with other people we agree to behave minimally responsibly and to respect the lives and wellbeing of others. If we violate the contract, we forfeit the right to live in society. I see banishment or death as the natural corollaries.
Jack, there's no doubt that punishment can be a deterrent to crime, but how would we prove which forms of punishment deter the most? Surely it's a matter that's very particular to the individual. Besides which, even if potential killers are afraid of the death penalty, realistically it's become such a rarity in this country that a person might assume (rightly) that it's a non-issue in their case.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: In my experience, criminals have their fears. My understanding is that true sociopaths are motivated only by cause and effect.Further, though not all criminals are completely sociopathic we must give them to assume that the effect of their commission of crime is likely to be of a nature very humiliating , inconvenient and of denial to them of the ability to satisfy their wants. Executing a killer ensures that he will not kill again ( I note only for sake of dialogue) and that no irresponsible, dreamy do gooder like Cuomo or Dukakis can casually work on the lawful the terrible wrong of exposing them to further unspeakable and far reaching violence from that individual. As for the rest of the criminal crowd: we ought to classify them simply as either reformable or beyond reform: the former would be remedied by a one time stretch in relatively brief but very demanding boot camp style incarceration with no second chances after release. Any further offense would result at least in lifetime custody and close supervision.The latter, including ANY violent victimizer, would go away for life, period.We must, I think, re adopt the contempt for criminals still held by many E.Asian and Muslim countries. A rough life cannot be madean excuse, especially if the victim is equally unfortunate. Rudolph Guiliani amply demonstrated in NYC that criminals, when faced by a society unwilling to succor them, will refrain in far greater numbers.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Banishment, yes. If it can be enforced and the innocent protected, I think it would be just, perhaps for those who are not violent victimizers but, having been given a chance at boot camp incarceration, have nonetheless proven their refusal to live by the rules after release. Electronic surveillance might work well to prevent them from further vexing the lawful with their destructive presence.
ReplyDeleteJack, we "got tough" on crime in the 80s and 90s, and crime rates went way down -- but is that because of deterrence, or is it because we simply took a lot of bad guys off the streets and denied them the chance to do bad things? Hard to say. And, yes, rational people can be deterred from perpetrating criminal violence, BUT that largely depends not on the severity of the punishment but the certainty that it will be meted out. That is to say, in America, if you "do the crime", there's a pretty good chance you won't "do the time", and bad guys know this.
ReplyDeleteGetting tough on crime was one reason crime rates went down. Two equally important reasons were 1) by the early 1990s, we started seeing a dramatic decline in the prime crime-committing demographic group (males 14-30) and 2) we had an assault weapons ban from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s.
DeleteRod, you know as well as we do that "assault weapons" are involved in a microscopic number of violent crimes -- some high profile ones, for sure, but it's pistols that do the real damage, statistically. The assault weapons ban was irrelevant to the crime rate.
ReplyDeleteNick, please see DiMaggio, et al., (2019). Changes in US mass shooting deaths associated with the 1994-2004 federal assault weapons ban: Analysis of open-source data. Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, 86 (1), pp. 11-19.
DeleteThe study found that mass-shooting related homicides in the U.S. were 70% less likely to occur in during the ban than in either the years before the ban or after the ban.
Note that I said that the assault weapons ban was one factor, in addition to the decline in the prime age group for violent criminals (which you did not address).
Rod, "rifles" as a whole are fairly insignificant contributors to homicide, as per the FBI, so, logically, "assault rifles" are even less of an issue.
ReplyDeletehttps://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/GUIC.PDF
By the way, what is an "assault rifle"? Is it...any rifle you don't like? Any rifle that looks scary?
And I suspect that you are vastly overstating the demographic component to the decline in violent crime. That's what this study says, at any rate.
https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf